I'm excited

[Phillip Patton]

I'm now putting together my first salt pot for heat treating. I think this will be great. I keep having problems with warpage, in spite of multiple normalizations and stress reliefs.

Also, I'm looking forward to the savings from being able to finish knives before heat treating, and thus not using so many grinding belts. :thumbup: Belts are by far my biggest expense.

 

[NickWheeler]

Very cool Phillip! :thumbup: Got any pics?

I still get warpage every now and again, and I'm VERY anal about forging evenly, grinding evenly, thorough thermal cycles. Sometimes I think you just hit the oil a bit off, or don't hold your mouth just right, and it happens.

I still leave meat on the blade to grind after heat-treat. I have better control that way.

Hope the new tools adds as much to your shop as it did mine

 

[Phillip Patton]

Very cool Phillip! :thumbup: Got any pics?

I still get warpage every now and again, and I'm VERY anal about forging evenly, grinding evenly, thorough thermal cycles. Sometimes I think you just hit the oil a bit off, or don't hold your mouth just right, and it happens.

I still leave meat on the blade to grind after heat-treat. I have better control that way.

Hope the new tools adds as much to your shop as it did mine

I know it's not going to be a complete fix. I do need to be more diligent with forging and grinding evenly, but I'm sure it will help some.


Here are pics:


"Disclaimer" These pictures are intended for entertainment purposes only. This is not a tutorial. For liability reasons, I'm not encouraging anyone to make salt pots. I hope this thread isn't too detailed as it is.


I got a piece of 316/316L from a local scrapyard. It was 56" long, 4" ID, with 1/4" walls. I paid $67 for it. I cut off a 16" length for knives, and the 40" piece will be for swords.

Here's the body of the system. I actually made this a couple years ago, then decided I wasn't ready for salt pots. I've been storing long bars of steel in it. It was great for that. I'll miss it.

Fixing up the lid/pot support:

 

[Phillip Patton]

Here's the burner most of the way assembled:

The blower:

Here's the burner nozzle. I forge a "neck" close to the end of the pipe, otherwise the flame would backfire. The pipe has to expand after the neck or the flame would blow itself out.

 

[Phillip Patton]

On to the controller.

Solenoid and gas line:

Thermocouple:

Master power switch:

Controller and relay mounted:

And here's something no knifemaker should be without:

Edited to add, the grenade thing is just for laughs. I have great customers, and don't get many complaints, except about being late.

 

[steelshaper]

Just a thought Phillip but it looks like your burner is on the bottom and if the salt in the bottom of the pot is liquid before the top is you may have a problem. There is a cure of sorts though. that is a rod placed inside the pot while it is not in use and taken back out before any of the salt is liquid. I could be wrong about this but I am fairly sure I heard this discused before.

 

[SteelSlaver]

Hey Nice job and it looks well made and thought out. I will haveto built one some day. I think it is the very best way to go on HT.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Just a thought Phillip but it looks like your burner is on the bottom and if the salt in the bottom of the pot is liquid before the top is you may have a problem. There is a cure of sorts though. that is a rod placed inside the pot while it is not in use and taken back out before any of the salt is liquid. I could be wrong about this but I am fairly sure I heard this discused before.

I've wondered about where the burner should be, but I think by using the tapered rod trick it should be ok. Thanks for bringing it up though.

 

[steelshaper]

I just thought I would throw that out there. Its better safe than sorry!

Its looking good so far. I cant blame you for being excited. Tim Z. told me I could go over to his place to use his salt pots. I am really looking forward to that. I love O-1 and all things considerd the salt pots are the way to go especially for O-1 and L-6.

Good luck with the project and I look forward to hearing about your results.

Oh and a big thanks fo the pics!

 

[Phillip Patton]

Today I got the controller working, with much help from my dad and brother.

I also got the tube welded:

And several days ago made the tapered rod:

Here's the chimney:

Taking shape! It should be operational by the end of the week.

 

[NickWheeler]

Phillip, what is the reason for the split lid? How are you going to keep insulation in the top?

 

[Phillip Patton]

Phillip, what is the reason for the split lid? How are you going to keep insulation in the top?

The reason for the split lid is that I didn't have stock wide enough.

The insulation at the top will be held up by the insulation on the sides. Is there a better way?

 

[NickWheeler]

Haha, your first answer covered both my questions I think

I saw the brackets on the sides of your forge body and the split halves and thought maybe you had something tricky up your sleeve. lol Thought you might have an idea I'd need to implement into mine!

As per insulation, mine is just like you said. I've got two inches on the sides and two inches (all is 1"doubled) on top that rests on the sides.

It's looking good, I'm excited for you to get it running :thumbup: I think you're going to love it!

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

One place where castable refractory shines is things like salt pots. They need to be fully soaked, and run for extended time periods.
Doing the lining on a 36" long cylinder is not easy. Leaving it uncoated is not safe or desirable. Pouring the bottom with 3" of castable,letting it set up a bit, then pouring the sides (use a cardboard or sheet metal tube as a retaining wall) 1" to 2" thick is easy. Then all you need to do is add a coat of ITC-100. The footing of the tube can also be cast into the bottom refractory, making center placement easy. (I poured a 2" base, them place the tube and poured another inch).

As to the split top. That is also needed to place and remove (oh yes, it will need replacing eventually), the tube. Also, the tube gets longer and wider in use (by a surprising amount), and there needs to be room. Do not weld the top to the tube.

Stacy

 

[Phillip Patton]

Well, the rest of the components should be arriving today. I don't think I'll actually fire it up until I have a bunch of blades to heat treat. But I should have finished pictures by this evening. :thumbup:

 

[Phillip Patton]

Haha, your first answer covered both my questions I think

I saw the brackets on the sides of your forge body and the split halves and thought maybe you had something tricky up your sleeve. lol Thought you might have an idea I'd need to implement into mine!

As per insulation, mine is just like you said. I've got two inches on the sides and two inches (all is 1"doubled) on top that rests on the sides.

It's looking good, I'm excited for you to get it running :thumbup: I think you're going to love it!

LOL Sorry Nick, no stroke of genius here. I think the only benefit the split top has is that it will be easier to extract the tube, should it expand like Stacy said it would.

I was going to use 2" thick kaowool, because that's what I have a lot of, but I thought that with a 10" diameter shell, and a 4.5" OD tube, that wouldn't leave much room for the fire. I could be wrong.

I'm still using 2" for the top and bottom, though.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Here's some more pics:


Drying the ITC-100 coating and trying it out without the salt tube:

The controller showing the rising temp:

With the salt pot in:

Again, I'm not going to put salt in it until I get a big batch of blades ready to harden.

 

[efleming]

Looking good Phillip. Looking at your first picture, I would back out your burner about 1" to keep your burner nozzle just inside the Kaowool liner. This will give longer life to your nozzle tip and keep your burner tube from heating up outside your forge. Nice set up!

Eric

 

[Keith_H]

Very cool. Can you do any heat treat temp or is it limited to the 1400- 1600 range?

 

[Will Leavitt]

Keith, not to speak for Phillip but you have high temp and low temp salts... the temperature that the salts become molten defines the range and usage of the salts.